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I ONCE more the storm is howling, and half hid | |
| Under this cradle-hood and coverlid | |
| My child sleeps on. There is no obstacle | |
| But Gregory’s Wood and one bare hill | |
| Whereby the haystack and roof-levelling wind, | 5 |
| Bred on the Atlantic, can be stayed; | |
| And for an hour I have walked and prayed | |
| Because of the great gloom that is in my mind. | |
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II I have walked and prayed for this young child an hour, | |
| And heard the sea-wind scream upon the tower, | 10 |
| And under the arches of the bridge, and scream | |
| In the elms above the flooded stream; | |
| Imagining in excited reverie | |
| That the future years had come | |
| Dancing to a frenzied drum | 15 |
| Out of the murderous innocence of the sea. | |
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III May she be granted beauty, and yet not | |
| Beauty to make a stranger’s eye distraught, | |
| Or hers before a looking-glass; for such, | |
| Being made beautiful overmuch, | 20 |
| Consider beauty a sufficient end, | |
| Lose natural kindness, and maybe | |
| The heart-revealing intimacy | |
| That chooses right, and never find a friend. | |
| |
IV Helen, being chosen, found life flat and dull, | 25 |
| And later had much trouble from a fool; | |
| While that great Queen that rose out of the spray, | |
| Being fatherless, could have her way, | |
| Yet chose a bandy-legged smith for man. | |
| It’s certain that fine women eat | 30 |
| A crazy salad with their meat | |
| Whereby the Horn of Plenty is undone. | |
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V In courtesy I’d have her chiefly learned; | |
| Hearts are not had as a gift, but hearts are earned | |
| By those that are not entirely beautiful. | 35 |
| Yet many, that have played the fool | |
| For beauty’s very self, has charm made wise; | |
| And many a poor man that has roved, | |
| Loved and thought himself beloved, | |
| From a glad kindness cannot take his eyes. | 40 |
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VI May she become a flourishing hidden tree, | |
| That all her thoughts may like the linnet be, | |
| And have no business but dispensing round | |
| Their magnanimities of sound; | |
| Nor but in merriment begin a chase, | 45 |
| Nor but in merriment a quarrel. | |
| Oh, may she live like some green laurel | |
| Rooted in one dear perpetual place. | |
| |
VII My mind, because the minds that I have loved, | |
| The sort of beauty that I have approved, | 50 |
| Prosper but little, has dried up of late, | |
| Yet knows that to be choked with hate | |
| May well be of all evil chances chief. | |
| If there’s no hatred in a mind | |
| Assault and battery of the wind | 55 |
| Can never tear the linnet from the leaf. | |
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VIII An intellectual hatred is the worst, | |
| So let her think opinions are accursed. | |
| Have I not seen the loveliest woman born | |
| Out of the mouth of Plenty’s horn, | 60 |
| Because of her opinionated mind | |
| Barter that horn and every good | |
| By quiet natures understood | |
| For an old bellows full of angry wind? | |
| |
IX Considering that, all hatred driven hence, | 65 |
| The soul recovers radical innocence | |
| And learns at last that it is self-delighting, | |
| Self-appeasing, self-affrighting, | |
| And that its own sweet will is heaven’s will, | |
| She can, though every face should scowl | 70 |
| And every windy quarter howl | |
| Or every bellows burst, be happy still. | |
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X And may her bridegroom bring her to a house | |
| Where all’s accustomed, ceremonious; | |
| For arrogance and hatred are the wares | 75 |
| Peddled in the thoroughfares. | |
| How but in custom and in ceremony | |
| Are innocence and beauty born? | |
| Ceremony’s a name for the rich horn, | |
| And custom for the spreading laurel tree. | 80 |
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